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News Recent Grant Award We have recently received a grant for radiocarbon dating of samples from the Indian Camp Run site located in Forest County, PA. This award was made possible through the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council. Special thanks goes to Heather Wholey, Paul Raber, Mark McConaughy, Bob Kingsley and John Nass. The new dates will be published on this website as soon as they become available. Upcoming Conference
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Members List:
Links Section
Archaeologists:
Andrew Myers
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Malinda Myers
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Overview
Allegheny Archaeological Research is an organization made up of professionally trained archaeologists with a wide array of talents and interests. These individuals are graduates of the Pennsylvania State University and Radford University respectively and have worked throughout the eastern and midwestern United States on a number of cultural resource management (CRM) and research based archaeology projects.
This website attempts to share with members of the archaeological community and interested individuals archaeological data gathered from a region where little fieldwork has ever been conducted much less reported. Most of the papers are works in progress and will continually change until reaching a completed stage. Questions and comments are encouraged.
During the past several years the team at Allegheny Archaeology has conducted research at a number of prehistoric sites in a region that includes but is not limited to the central and upper Allegheny River basin and the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.
Since 1998 research has focused primarily on a grouping of sites located in Forest County, Pennsylvania. One site known as Indian Camp Run No. 1 has produced some of the only known buried Paleoindian deposits found in the entire Allegheny River valley of western Pennsylvania. Some of the Paleoindian tools found at the site could be as old as 10,600 radio carbon years B.P. One whole fluted projectile recovered (see photo to the left) was viewed by Dr. Christopher Ellis of the University of Western Ontario in London who suggested that if the projectile had been found in Ontario he would not hesitate to call it a Barnes, a projectile point/knife (PP/K) form diagnostic of the Parkhill Complex that dates to around 8,600 B.C. A paper documenting the proposed Paleoindian assemblage is now available at this website. See "Paleoindian Research in Western Pennsylvania".
In a discussion held at the 2007 Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology meeting in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a leading Geomorphologist-Soil Scientist, who has examined the site statigraphy, called the site the oldest known prehistoric site on the floodplain of the Allegheny River.
Archaeological investigations at the Indian Camp Run sites are now complete. Both sites were excavated to nearly 100% of the known site area. A great deal of information was gathered and the first major publication is ready to appear in the fall of 2007.
Coming soon a discussion of the recent archaeological testing in Jefferson County, PA.
Testing conducted along the Clarion River has produced evidence of an early encampment in the river valley
The Clarion River is one of the larger constituents that comprise the Allegheny River watershed of western Pennsylvania. The Clarion basin drains an area of 1,252 square miles (Clarion River Basin Commission) and is bounded on the north by the Tionesta Creek and upper Allegheny River, on the south by the Redbank Creek, on the east by the headwaters of the West Branch of the Susquehanna, and on the west by the Allegheny River proper. Along with the Redbank Creek, Mahoning Creek and a number of smaller streams and runs, the Clarion River is one of a number of water courses that constitute the Central Allegheny drainage basin. These drainages have origins in the east along the divide separating the Ohio River from the Susquehanna drainage and flow west to empty into the Allegheny River (Ohio River).
The Clarion River originates in the southern portion of McKean County and travels some 101 miles before entering the Allegheny River at Foxburg in Armstrong County. Its headwaters are comprised of two branches known as the East and West Branch. The East branch has origins in the Catherine Swamp located near Clermont, McKean County while the West Branch originates a short distance away from the town of Kane and the village of Mt Jewett, PA. At Johnsonburg, located some 13 miles south of the headwaters, the east and west branches meet to form the Clarion River proper. The vast majority of this course is through dense woodlands with the towns of Clarion and Ridgway being the largest populated areas in which the river passes.
All of the land area drained by the Clarion River is unglaciated and is included in portions of the High Plateau and Pittsburgh Low Plateau Sections of the Appalachian Plateaus Physiographic Province. This region is largely characterized by broad expanses of undulating upland plateau at times deeply cut by a myriad of streams and runs. The majority of the region is still covered by vast areas of hardwood forest which are seldom penetrated except by hunters, loggers, and others who might dare venture into the woods. As if traversing this dense forested region wasn’t difficult enough, thick clusters of mountain laurel and rhododendron straddle the landscape making entry into many areas all but impossible.
Ironically in this vast region little archaeological fieldwork has ever been conducted. The majority of the investigation has been conducted in upland settings and primarily in rock shelter type sites. Two of these excavations were subsequently published in "Pennsylvania Archeologist" (see Burkett 47(4):8-26; and Myers 71(1):43-68.
With that in mind little is currently known about the early cultures that once inhabited the river valley.
Test unit located along the Clarion River in Jefferson County. Note: The red oxidized soil is actually a portion of a small prehistoric hearth.
The recent archaeological investigations will review some of the problems encountered while testing along the river and examine the results of findings. New light will be shed on the prehistoric cultures that once inhabited one of Pennsylvania's most scenic waterways.
General test area photo
Stone tool exposed in corner of test unit
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